Yes, but the non-Coke-owned competitors of Honest Tea won't have any difficulty in touting the absence of HFCS. This is a prisoner's dilemma; it does no good for just one competitor to stop pushing against HFCS, you need them all to collude to stop together.

There's also arrogance on the behalf of Coke's execs. Not only do they think that these beliefs aren't preordained, but they believe that they themselves are doing the ordaining. It seems like they are myopic to the problems of competing in the space Honest Tea is in, and more interested in defending their cash cow.